A well-known American federal appellate judge, Alex Kozinski, has written a commentary on systemic biases and institutional myths in the criminal justice system.

The basic thrust of his criticism will be familiar to readers of the sequences and rationalists generally. Lots about cognitive biases (but some specific criticisms of fingerprints and DNA evidence as well). Still, it's interesting that a prominent federal judge -- the youngest when appointed, and later chief of the Ninth Circuit -- would treat some sacred cows of the judiciary so ruthlessly. 

This is specifically a criticism of U.S. criminal justice, but, ceteris paribus, much of it applies not only to other areas of U.S. law, but to legal practices throughout the world as well.

Jason Mitchell is [edit: has been] the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard. He has won the National Academy of Science's Troland Award as well as the Association for Psychological Science's Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contribution.

Here, he argues against the principle of replicability of experiments in science. Apparently, it's disrespectful, and presumptively wrong.

Recent hand-wringing over failed replications in social psychology is largely pointless, because unsuccessful experiments have no meaningful scientific value.

Because experiments can be undermined by a vast number of practical mistakes, the likeliest explanation for any failed replication will always be that the replicator bungled something along the way. Unless direct replications are conducted by flawless experimenters, nothing interesting can be learned from them.

Three standard rejoinders to this critique are considered and rejected. Despite claims to the contrary, failed replications do not provide meaningful information if they closely follow original methodology; they do not necessarily identify effects that may be too small or flimsy to be worth studying; and they cannot contribute to a cumulative understanding of scientific phenomena.

Replication efforts appear to reflect strong prior expectations that published findings are not reliable, and as such, do not constitute scientific output.

The field of social psychology can be improved, but not by the publication of negative findings. Experimenters should be encouraged to restrict their “degrees of freedom,” for example, by specifying designs in advance.

Whether they mean to or not, authors and editors of failed replications are publicly impugning the scientific integrity of their colleagues. Targets of failed replications are justifiably upset, particularly given the inadequate basis for replicators’ extraordinary claims.

This is why we can't have social science. Not because the subject is not amenable to the scientific method -- it obviously is. People are conducting controlled experiments and other people are attempting to replicate the results. So far, so good. Rather, the problem is that at least one celebrated authority in the field hates that, and would prefer much, much more deference to authority.

This is for anyone in the LessWrong community who has made at least some effort to read the sequences and follow along, but is still confused on some point, and is perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed. Here, newbies and not-so-newbies are free to ask very basic but still relevant questions with the understanding that the answers are probably somewhere in the sequences. Similarly, LessWrong tends to presume a rather high threshold for understanding science and technology. Relevant questions in those areas are welcome as well.  Anyone who chooses to respond should respectfully guide the questioner to a helpful resource, and questioners should be appropriately grateful. Good faith should be presumed on both sides, unless and until it is shown to be absent.  If a questioner is not sure whether a question is relevant, ask it, and also ask if it's relevant.

Having been diagnosed with cancer last year, writer Christopher Hitchens has died. He was known as as an outspoken atheist, which is not, in itself, identical to being a committed rationalist in any systematic way. Even so, he seemed to have the virtue of moral courage, the willingness to speak the truth as he saw it, without fear.